


Devil Winds

by pringlesaremydivision



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision/pseuds/pringlesaremydivision
Summary: “There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get during the first Santa Ana winds of autumn - your eyes tear up, your nose starts to run, your hands and feet get cold, and everything is dry. It’s a subtle kind of misery, brought about by those snarling winds that writers can’t help but wax poetic about. If you’re feeling especially mean, for no reason at all, blame it on the Santa Anas, and know that fall is upon us.” ( x )Link knows what the winds can do.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This would be absolutely nothing without [Rachelle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MythicallySnappy/) and [Amanda](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amanderjean/), the most majestic, tireless beetas a girl could ask for and a couple of fantastic ladies to boot.

Plenty of people will say the winds are superstitious nonsense, a coincidence and nothing more—if they acknowledge them at all. Most of the crew, transplants from out of state, just complain about the dry air, the cracked, raw skin and the _drip-drip-drip_ of nosebleeds, and think nothing else of it.

Link knows better. Link knows what the winds can do.

He doesn’t believe in astrology or the multiverse, doesn’t think the way the planets are aligned has anything to do with the way people behave, but the winds—that’s different. True, he’s only been in California for half a dozen years, but that’s more than enough time to see the way people change when summer ends. People get mean, or weepy, or violent, or sometimes all three; murder and suicide rates both go up when the winds whistle in and the wildfires start. Everyone is on edge when the Santa Anas come; it’s just a matter of _how_.

The kids become more short-tempered than usual, petty disagreements escalating into full-blown squalls, doors slamming so often Link threatens to take them off the hinges. The doors shut more quietly after that, but the winds continue to snarl and scream, and so do the kids. They’ll be mean until December, and Link’s got a headache already.

Christy gets weepy and withdrawn, pushing Link away and apologizing while she’s doing it. Link does his best not to take it personally, hands her tissues and tea and retreats to the living room to toss and turn and try to sleep on a sofa that sparks with static electricity every time he moves, tiny white bursts of light in the dark.

Link isn’t arrogant enough to think he’s above it all. The winds make him itchy under his skin, restless and needy, desperate for something he’s barely able to resist the rest of the year. Like clockwork, the ache hits him hardest in the dusty moments just after dawn, when the weather’s at its worst. He slips out of the house before the sun has fully crested the horizon, a man on a mission, driving to beat the devil in the blood-red morning light.

Link comes to Rhett like fall comes to Los Angeles—bright and hot and hard, caution thrown to the gale-force wind. The rest of the year is for subtlety and soft glances, for wanting but not taking. The winds make Link reckless.

Rhett’s moods are as changeable as the color of his eyes when the winds come roaring in. He’s snappish one moment, harsh words crackling like the brushfire in the mountains, then sullen the next, melancholy washing over him like the ocean swells that rip the boats from their moorings. There’s nothing Link can say to soothe or uplift, so he doesn’t bother.

Link holds Rhett down when they fuck in the fall, presses him down with a forearm thrown against his collarbones as he fucks into him hard and deep, just this side of punishing. It’s the only thing that works when Rhett gets like this, the only thing that pulls him out of his own head and silences his viper tongue, and Link’s more than happy to do it. It quiets that uneasy ache in his own chest, having Rhett spread out underneath him, pliant and wanting. Rhett’s skin tastes like ash, like soot, but his mouth tastes like the renewal that comes after the fire. Link drinks him down like a man dying of thirst, and ignores the aftertaste that smacks of destruction. 

They don’t talk much when the winds whip through the palms. They’ve only got so much time, and wasting any of it on words would be more of a sin than anything they do together while the winds howl like demons all around them.

Because to everything there is a season, and in Los Angeles, nothing lasts forever. The winds sweep out as fast as they tumbled in, temperamental and restive themselves, violent drifters blowing through the city. The dust settles and the fires burn out; the waves calm themselves and the ocean breeze returns. Rhett smiles again, jagged edges like jade sea glass rubbed smooth by the shift of the weather, and the sharp itch under Link’s skin dulls to something low and throbbing, ever-present but much more manageable.

There’s never any mention of the nights they’ve shared, every trace but the phantom press of fingertips on skin whisked away like leaves on the brittle breeze. What they have, when the winds come—it’s too fierce, too rough, too dangerous to be sustainable, and they both know it. There is a balance they must keep, a line that for most of the year can’t be crossed.

But when the forecast shows the Santa Anas are on their way again, Link can’t help the way his heart starts to pound, can’t help the prickle of sweat at his temples or the way his mouth goes dry with anticipation.

After all, it’s not his fault. He can’t help what the winds make him do.


End file.
